Kinetic study of hydrodeoxygenation of palmitic acid as a model compound for microalgae oil over Pt/γ-Al2O3

Lin Zhou, Adeniyi Lawal

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

The kinetics of hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of palmitic acid over the 1% Pt/γ-Al2O3catalyst was investigated in a microreactor using integral method. Kinetic data were collected under process conditions of industrial interest but in the regime with negligible heat and mass transfer limitations. For the first time, rate equations derived from three kinetic models (Power law, Langmuir-Hinshelwood, and Eley-Rideal) were investigated in data fitting through nonlinear regression using Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, and evaluated based on proposed statistical and thermodynamics criteria. H2was found to be adsorbed on the catalyst surface without dissociation, which is different from gaseous reaction with consistent dissociative adsorption of H2.The apparent activation energy is 60.3 kJ/mol, which is lower than the intrinsic activation energy of 92.9 kJ/mol due to the exothermic adsorption of reactants. The proposed rate equations are expected to be applicable to liquid phase HDO of fatty acids, and not limited to palmitic acid. This complete kinetic study (including rate equations with specified kinetic parameters) fills an important knowledge gap in green diesel production from algae, and can be used for rational design of reactors and the determination of optimum operating conditions. Moreover, the presented work develops a systematic procedure for kinetic study by identifying the challenges that need to be overcome to obtain meaningful kinetic data.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)40-49
Number of pages10
JournalApplied Catalysis A: General
Volume532
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017

Keywords

  • Eley-Rideal
  • Hydrodeoxygenation (HDO)
  • Kinetic study
  • Langmuir-Hinshelwood
  • Microalgae oil
  • Power law
  • Pt/AlO

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